A friend needed a hand getting the battery out of his
old Ford Escort, it seemed like a simple enough task. But the bolts
holding down the battery were seized and my ratchet just couldn’t shift
them. Then I had a brainwave, if I used the rotary clothes dryer that
we have in our garden I can use it as a lever on my woefully inadequate
tool and assert a lot more torque on the seized nuts.
It worked a treat, in no time at all I had sheered off the top of one
of the bolts
And before long the second bolt has also snapped off, allowing us to
easily lift the battery out. Now came the supposedly easy bit, all I
had to do was put the clothes dryer back in it’s hole in the ground.
But there’s a small matter of a 10 ft drop from our patio to the level
of the garden that the clothes line lives on. And I built the step,
quite creatively I think you’ll agree. Buoyed up by success of my recent
appliance of the laws of physics I probably wasn’t paying as much attention
as I probably should have been at the top of the step. For some reason
my ankle gave way at the very top, sending me down the step at some
speed. My head was nicely aimed for a big plant pot below which I decided
against giving a Glaswegian Kiss. I twisted mid air, like some slightly
plumper Jackie Chan with wooly hair and skillfully landed all 14 stone
of my weight on my shin on the edge of a step. When the six foot something
of the rest of my bulk hit the ground pain went rocketing up my left
shin. The kind of pain that takes away your breath, shrinks your nuts
and make you feel like you are going to puke. My foot felt slightly
numb and for a second I worried that I’d broken my leg. I tentatively
felt my shin and it all appeared to be in one piece. After a few minutes
of rolling in the dirt, contorting in agony I found that the local cats
have started using this level of our garden as a latrine. I eventually
stopped talking in tongues and made my way indoors to inspect the damage.
I’m not the kind of person that bruises very easily, so I was pretty
disappointed with what looks like a feeble graze. It really hurt and
I felt in a daze for about an hour afterwards. Emma’s mum (who was a
nurse) helpfully told me that if there’s no bruising then it means all
the damage and bleeding is happening internally, which I took great
solace in.
One of the great things about being English is that thanks to a evolutionary
quirk a cup of tea will cure most aches, pains and pretty much any other
troubles. I had a little more milk than usual, after all I’m sure it’s
my love of milk that strengthened my bones to the point that even 250
pounds of my man weight falling at height couldn’t break my shin bone!
The moral of the story? Don’t buy a Ford I guess, it’s certainly the
only lesson I’m going to take from this episode!
Footnote – you might wonder why I had recorded this
event in photos, especially when at the start of the day I had no idea
I was about to cobble up my leg. Well I’ve had a really smart little
digital for a couple of years that fits nicely in my pocket and goes
everywhere I do. It’s got a really tough case, which is one of the main
reasons I chose it, in fact I kinda landed on it when it was in my pocket
during this fall, and it’s still totally fine! I take LOT of photos
of a LOT of things, I’ve never really thought hard about why I do this,
I guess it’s becuase life is so precious and there’s so many things
we take for granted around us that we never stop to fully absorb. Well
plus the fact I have the memory of an infant flea.
Another Footnote – My mate Dave rang me after
I finished my cuppa and told me that he had run out of things to cut
up with his new chainsaw. He wanted to know if I had anything at my
house he could come and cut up, I decided that the law of gravity had
already made it clear to me that my DIY for today was well and truely
over.
Last Updated on February 18, 2023
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